And while it would be foolish to argue with the blame that the now widely disliked corporation shares for the state of The Phantom Pain, and really, the current state of Metal Gear in general, it would also be a little reductive to do so.

It’s very tempting to answer a question like that with just one word- Konami. But how did we get here- what the hell happened to Metal Gear Solid 5? So what happened? How is it that Hideo Kojima and Konami, the two of whom had collectively created one of the most legendary and astoundingly consistent franchises ever, a franchise that had a reputation for always having a stunning clarity of vision and doing everything in its power to make that vision a reality- how is it that Kojima and Konami ended a franchise such as that on such a disappointing note? The Phantom Pain is, unquestionably, an excellent game, but it’s one that has crippling flaws, the kind that even its staunchest defenders would not – could not – argue against. No, it is unfinished because it literally feels like half a game- like it had so much more to say, so much more to show, but midway through, it just… stopped.

“Unfinished” is a word that is used to describe games quite commonly (unfortunately enough), but rarely does that description ring as true as it does for Metal Gear Solid 5- because it’s not unfinished because of technical issues, neither because of a lack of polish, nor because of half-formed ideas. With Metal Gear Solid 5, Hideo Kojima and his team at Kojima Productions set out to do something different, and while the excellence of how the game plays is evidence of the fact that they definitely had the right idea, one look at the final product in its totality also tells us that they couldn’t quite execute that idea the way they had hoped they would.

While Metal Gear Solid games have never shied away from taking risks from a game design standpoint, and have always featured best in class gameplay, their focus, first and foremost, has always been on story and storytelling.

The hand of mastermind Hideo Kojima is clear to see in a lot of what The Phantom Pain does, even when it’s actively trying to set itself apart from its precursors, but for many fans of the series, the game feels like a betrayal of everything the legendary franchise has always stood for. While it’s hard to argue against Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain’s strengths from a pure game design perspective, it is still a game that a lot of veteran Metal Gear fans harbour very complicated feelings towards.

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